The interest which is beginning to be awakened in rifle-practice is the germ of a great movement, which it is the duty of all who have the national welfare at heart to use their influence in guiding and directing, as may easily be done, so that only good may result from it. Let it be countenanced and encouraged by the men, in every community, whose words and example give tone to public opinion, and it will become, as it ought, a means of health-giving and generous rivalry, while it infuses a sense of national power, which we, of all people on earth, ought to derive from the consciousness that it is based upon the physical ability of the people to maintain their own rights. If, however, it is frowned upon and sneered at, as unworthy the attention of a morally and intellectually cultivated people, we shall draw upon ourselves the curse of creating a sin,--of poisoning at its source a fountain whose elements in themselves are not only innocent, but abounding in the best ingredients for the development of manly physical and intellectual character. We trust, however, that such a caution is unnecessary. If there are any among us who, after the past year's experience, can look with doubt or coldness upon such a movement as we have indicated, we should hardly care to waste words in arguing the point. That such a feeling should have heretofore existed is not, perhaps, surprising. The possibility of such an emergency as has come upon us has seemed so improbable, not to say impossible, that it has appeared like a waste of time and labor to prepare for it; and the result has been, that we had come to look upon military education with much the same feeling as that with which we regard the pugilistic art, as of questionable, if not decidedly disreputable character, and such as a nation of our respectability could by no possibility have occasion for. From this dream of security we have been unexpectedly and very disagreeably awakened, by finding ourselves engaged in a war whose magnitude we were at first slow to appreciate; and it was not till we found ourselves ominously threatened by a foreign power, while still engaged in a fearful struggle at home, that we seemed to be fully aroused to the necessity of being at all times prepared for defence.